Craft booths now total around 400

There will be so many craft booths at this year's Maple Leaf Festival, Stacy Cohen is positive there will be something to interest everyone.

"We have something for everybody," said Cohen, who is one of the craft booths coordinators. "I think we have more to offer to people than ever before."

This year's number of craft booths have far exceeded last year's 250.

"We're comfortably going to have more than 400 booths," she said.

There will again be booths in the Baldwin City Fire Station, 60X High St., Stacy's Dance Studio, 723 Eighth St., and inside as well as outside the Baldwin Elementary School Primary Center, 700 Chapel St. This year the former lumberyard at 718 High St. will also house a number of booths.

Booths will also line High Street between Sixth and Ninth streets, and will stretch north on Eighth Street starting at Indiana Street.

Cohen said the arts and crafts booths vendors are selected from a list of applications. The vendors selected, she said, are ones with good-quality, handcrafted work.

"We ask is this something we think would appeal to people in the community or people visiting," she said. "We ask is it something new we don't have.

"We try to keep a balance of what interests people."

Booths will feature everything from jewelry and pottery to fine art and floral arrangements.

Many of the vendors are fixtures at the festival and have returned year after year. But Cohen said many of this year's vendors are new to the festival.

"What's so exciting this year is that we have so many new crafters," she said. "Some of the stuff is just different than what we've seen before."

New this year, she said, will be items like gourmet candies and cheesecakes and caricature art.

The festival attracts vendors from all over Kansas, she said, and several surrounding states including Missouri, Colorado and Oklahoma.

The booths will be open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. Cohen said many booths start selling early and will be open by 8 a.m. both days.

She said she expects the additional craft booths will only make the festival better.

"If the weather is good, this could be the best festival ever," she said.